Common core and common sense

To think or not to think, that is the core of the issue in education today. And in regards to that issue, common sense comprehension is also not so common.

Over the past decade, education has been driven by No Child Left Behind legislation that was passed by Congress in 2001. One of the main purposes of the act was to provide access for disadvantaged students to the basic skills needed for success. These skills were then going to be assessed through an annual test and the results were to be used to promote a wide variety of reforms. These test results were made public and then schools were held accountable for growth. If growth did not proceed according to certain proscribed patterns, then districts, administrators and teachers would have to make changes.

The challenges have been that the testing was so factoid recall and data driven that all the stakeholders involved, from students and parents, teachers and administrators, politicians and business people have been asking for years: so what? What does the score mean for my child’s learning and for our society in general? The knowledge did not translate into meaningful learning or applicable skills that students or anyone could actually use.

Also, in many cases, teachers and administrators lost the ability to really teach. The textbook and rote learning became the driving force behind education. In many schools, teachers were required to read mandated instructions and follow a prepared script for their lessons. Every teacher in a specific grade or subject was supposed to be on the exact lesson, page, assignment on the same day and were evaluated accordingly.

Textbook publishers loved the results, but students didn’t. And they didn’t learn, if learning meant possessing useful knowledge and employable skills to function effectively in today’s world. Now the pendulum in education has started swinging again. With Common Core Standards it is heading in the right direction, if we can achieve our target and keep it there.

The purpose of Common Core is to teach the how and why of knowledge, not just the what. That is going to be a challenge. With NCLB, the “what” of teaching and learning was easy to identify. Learning specific subject matter content data (vocabulary, dates, names, formulae, and procedures, etc.) was supposed to be simply a matter of input and output.

With the Common Core Standards, learning may not be quite so easy, but will certainly be more valuable. Education will emphasize the “process” of teaching and learning. The old adage of, “inquiring minds want to know”, will become the mantra for which education strives and society requires.

Students and teachers will still be tasked with having to acquire subject matter content but also with being able to DO something with that knowledge; something that will be authentic and useful in the real world. This something might be to access accurate and relevant resources, solve challenging problems with peer assistance, conduct effective presentations employing supporting argumentation with current research, or prepare coherent essays incorporating citation and analysis.

As a result of using Common Core across the nation, there will be clear evidence for students, parents, teachers, colleges, and employers that the students can demonstrate their learning. It will provide more documentation of competence than just with achieving a score of “basic proficiency” on a test.

However, implementing these Common Core Standards presents real challenges. For many students, just doing the work may not be enough. They will need to show they “know” knowledge and can employ it. For teachers and administrators who have relied on textbooks, lectures, and quiet time for the past 10-plus years to guide teaching, they will have to relearn how to plan, employ resources, interact with students and parents and measure real student learning.

Parents, as well, need to be aware, that as education changes, there will be uncertainty about how to help students with homework, such as writing a persuasive essay, citing several competing sources and integrating/ analyzing an author's point of view. Or, they may need to let a child figure out on their own how to employ algebraic and geometric thinking from a class lesson to solve a challenging real world task.

In the end, meaning the end result of schooling, students should to be able to live and act as responsible citizens, in all that entails, and not just be able to define the word citizen. Students should be able to think on their own, to work with others and solve complex problems using a variety of resources. I think that is a goal we can all hold in common.

Larry White taught at Lincoln High School for 34 years. Contact him at larry-white@comcast.net.